LIBRELLE: Why? You’re saying you have to support the National Rifle Association to be a “Real American?”

MITCH: Of course. not. But let me ask you this. If I said “I support the Bill of Rights, but I think the Fourth Amendment should not apply to Mexicans or Mexican-Americans?

LIBRELLE: What on earth are you getting at?

MITCH: Mexicans bring most of the drugs into the US, and they’re behind much of the violence related to the drug trade and drug prohibition! They’re fighting a freaking civil war over there, over drugs! Why should our children be killed, by violence and drugs, when the obvious solution – Mexican Control – is right in front of us! I mean, the Founding Fathers had no idea of the problems we were going to have with Mexicans when they wrote the Fourth Amendment!

LIBRELLE: That’s just ignorant and racist! The problems have nothing to do with the Mexican ethnicicty! They have to do with the prohibition and the drug trade and…

MITCH: …and the blight and rot eighty years of socialism have brought to Mexico?

LIBRELLE: Yeah. Er…hey! Americans, real Americans, don’t exclude people from the Bill of Rights over things that have nothing to do with the right itself!

MITCH: In other words, Real Americans don’t curtail the civil rights of the law-abiding because of the actions of criminals?

LIBRELLE: Yes!

MITCH: Bazinga.

LIBRELLE: Er…hey!

MITCH: It’s not the right to keep and bear arms that’s the problem. It’s the criminals and the insane.

LIBRELLE: Grrr! If this were a video game protected by the First Amendment, I’d shoot you in the face just like Jodie Foster did in The Brave One!

MITCH: Okay. Point being, Real Americans support all ten amendments of the Bill of Rights. Not just the fashionable ones.

LIBRELLE: So you think that murderers and felons should have the right to bear arms?

MITCH: Now, that’s the dumbest strawman of all. You can not find a credible Second Amendment advocate, anywhere, who doesn’t think keeping guns out of the hands of convicted felons isn’t a “reasonable regulation”.

LIBRELLE: But the NRA supports giving them guns!

MITCH: Wrong again. They support allowing felons to re-obtain their rights, with judicial review, if they’re deemed a suitable risk. The burden of proof is on them, and it’d only happen after at least a decade of keeping their nose clean, by which time society can usually figure they’re not recidivists.
LIBRELLE: You know what I hate about you?

MITCH: I couldn’t begin to count the ways.

LIBRELLE: You always think you have an answer for everything.

MITCH: I can’t imagine why.

LIBRELLE: OK, so we’ll “agree to disagree” about your “Real American” thing. But why do you call gun-control advocates “orcs?”

MITCH: Oh, you mean Tolkein’s reference to masses of dull-witted creatures that mindlessly and thoughtlessly follow an evil mission handed down to them by their overlords, without thinking, logic or reasoning, repeating what they’re told and never ever questioning it, no matter how depraved?

I know you try to maintain a level headed, fair minded approach to dealing with leftists, but I do wonder if not now, what it will take to convince you that every stinking leftist is a festering boil upon our country’s fair face.

That link to Black’s post about some law professor’s (danger sign right there) poppycock on the 2nd Amendment as tool to keep slaves in check highlights how far we’ve gotten away from understanding our history, our beginnings, and how much we’re throwing away by letting the government slowly and inexorably accrete more and more power to itself. (Obama didn’t start it, but he seems eager to finish it.)

My quick and humble thoughts on the 2nd Amendment. The Bill of Rights as added to the Constitution because some feared the document didn’t go far enough in restraining the powers of the federal government. And where did the Framers look to for ideas on how restrain federal powers? Because they’d read a book or two, they looked to English history.

A century before, England’s Glorious Revolution replaced King James with William and Mary, and the Bill of Rights of 1689 laid out restrictions on the Crown. One of the clauses was “That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law”. This is in the context of defending against a despotic king.

This Bill of Rights was also an influence on other parts of our Bill of Rights. The incident with the Seven Bishops led to the phrase “prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances” appearing in our First Amendment.

The 1689 Bill of Rights looked back to the Petition of Right of 1628 which also set out limits on the king’s power, and liberties that could not be infringed upon. This too influenced our Bill of Rights (especially the 3rd Amendment). And of course, these English efforts to curtail the king’s powers look all the way back to Magna Carta.

In short, the 2nd Amendment was born out of longstanding fears of despotic rule by a powerful government. English history shaped our Founders. Our Constitution was designed to leave us as rulers of our destiny, which is why liberals continually have a kneejerk objection to the 2nd Amendment. The want government to have the power the Founders feared. They recognize their enemies, and at some level they know it is meant to give people the power to resist them.

Prof Bogus is just the latest in the deconstructivist line of philosopher kings who can pull meaning out of gibberish.

Madison’s inspiration in the Virginia constitution states: That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. More wordy, but also very particular as to the individual nature of the right to keep and bear arms to defend against the tyranny of government.

There are many other instances of similar state Constitutions contemporaneous with the writing of the US Constitution that took pains to make very clear the individual’s right to bear arms. For example, in Vermont (from 1777): That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State — and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.

Pennsylvania (1790): The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

Kentucky (1792): “That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.”

Massachusetts (1780): The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it. (Now viewed as a collective right due to a 1976 case in the MA supreme court.)

There are several others if you’re willing to go to the first quarter of the 19th century, but this should give a feel for the individual nature of the argument and the real fear of the Founders about standing armies and tyranny of an overarching Federal government.